The Washington Post manages to juxtapose two compelling issues du jour in one summary article.

First, there were Congressional hearings yesterday on the subject of the dearth of black head coaches in college football. They produced the usual amount of hand-wringing and threats:

Amid the strong words, however, the solution might come in a subtle threat uttered near the end of the hearing. Perhaps, the point was made, it’s time to make Title VII do for black coaches what Title IX did for women’s sports.

“I think it’s pretty clear that embarrassment hasn’t been enough,” said Richard Lapchick, director of the Florida-based Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport.

“One of the things we’re thinking about is Title VII lawsuits.”

I’m not a quota guy, but I do think it’s shameful that the number of black head coaches in college football is so low, while a coaching retread like Dennis Erickson can get a gig at Arizona State. (Or certain idiots can think that Gary Barnett deserves another chance, for that matter.)

But that pales into insignificance compared with the rest of thestory: the chicken toss has been declared off limits at Kansas State.

That’s right – KSU students can no longer smuggle live chickens into basketball games and toss them onto the court to mock the University of Kansas’ Jayhawk mascot. Why? You can probably guess the answer to that:

… But an animal rights group objected to the mistreatment of chickens, and the school issued an open letter to fans this week calling for an end to the practice.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals responded to the latest incident during a game Feb. 19 by sending a letter to university president Jon Wefald, claiming at least three chickens were thrown on the court during player introductions.

My only question about this is the obvious one. How easy is it to sneak a live chicken into a college game, anyway?

Hey, you’ve got to give PETA credit – no slight to any member of the animal kingdom is too small for the organization to notice.

Er… uh… perhaps I should mention that no chickens were harmed or mistreated in the writing of this post.

“I am a Chicken. Hath not a Chicken eyes? Hath not a Chicken claws, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer as a Jayhawk is? If you pluck us, do we not bleed?”